Getting People to Help You

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Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Sarah Greene Carmichael. Asking our colleagues for help brings out all sorts of fears: of being rejected, of being liked less, even of looking dumb. Which is why we might not do it even when we really need help, or why we might act weird when we do ask. Like, I find myself apologizing for even asking. And I have a friend who tries to convince people that helping her really will be so much fun. And our guest today says actually both of these approaches, and a few others, are wildly ineffective.

Anything we accidentally do when we are asking people for help that makes it feel controlling in some way, that makes them feel like they're being manipulated in some way, is going to actually sort of spoil that sense for them that they're choosing it of their own accord.

Heidi Grant is a social psychologist and the associate director of Columbia Business School's Motivation Science Center. Her latest book is Reinforcements: How to Get People to Help You. And I should disclose that I edited the book, I'm happy to say. She's here to talk about the right way to ask for help at work. Heidi, thanks so much for talking with us today.

Oh, it's great to be here, Sarah.

Why is asking for help so hard?

One of the biggest obstacles to asking for help is simply that we don't actually think we're going to get it. What the research shows is that people are on average about twice as likely to help us as we think they are. So the biggest obstacle right out of the gate is the fear of rejection. And it just turns out human beings are by and large really prone to help one another. And we just tend to not think that's the case. When we ask for help, we're so busy thinking about how inconvenient it might be for the other person to help us or worrying what they might think of us because we need help that we just simply don't ask.

If people love to help so much, even strangers are willing to help, why don't more people offer help?

You know, that's a really good question. And that's another one of the things that I focus on a lot in the book are a lot of the misconceptions we have about why people aren't helping us. And fundamentally, there's sort of a lot of things that have to happen in order for someone to help you. And each of them actually represents a real obstacle. The first is that they actually have to notice that you need help. Each of us suffers from what psychologists call the illusion of transparency. We feel like our thoughts and our feelings and our circumstances are just sort of obvious to everyone else. The reality is most of the time, everybody's sort of focused on their own thing. Our attention is caught up in the things that we are doing, so we don't actually notice that the people around us are, in fact, in need. So that's sort of the first obstacle. You have to notice someone needs help. The second thing is you have to actually understand that they want your help, because sometimes, I mean, and each of us, I think, guilty of this. Have you ever had someone offer to help you with something that you didn't actually want help with? You wanted to do it yourself, right? And sometimes those requests for help, to request to give help or offers for help are kind of a little irritating. Then the third part is they have to actually believe that they're the one that's supposed to help. And that's a phenomenon that psychologists call diffusion of responsibility. So the more people there are around you when you're in need of help, ironically, sometimes the less likely you are to get it. Because it's not clear to any one person around you who should be the one to step forward.

And in the workplace, one of the things that seems to come up a lot is that people are afraid that if they ask for help, they'll seem less competent or they'll seem unlikable. Are those fears justified? I mean, we're not talking anymore about strangers in a train station, right? We're talking about our colleagues.

Yeah, and it turns out, again, once again, this is another place where our intuitions let us down a bit. It turns out that the answer is no. People don't actually think less of you because you ask for help. There's absolutely no evidence that when you ask people for their guidance or for their assistance with something that they think less of you for it. In fact, actually, there's some evidence that suggests that people who ask a lot of questions and seem more inquisitive and curious and eager to learn actually come across looking smarter. So first and foremost, there's just no evidence that people will think less of you. And in fact, there's actually pretty strong evidence that people like you more when they have helped you. And of course, again, there's a lot of discomfort. One of the things we don't think enough about when it comes to calculating the odds that someone will help us is that it's very, very uncomfortable for people to say no. There's a lot of sort of social norms that suggest that people should be helpful. They should be kind to one another. If someone asks you to help them, you're supposed to say yes. Maybe you're not really such a nice person if you say no. So people feel very, very uncomfortable saying no. And so generally speaking, will say yes if they can.

So I want to throw a little wrinkle into that, though, because we can all think of people in our lives who ask for help and annoy us, right?

Oh, sure.

Yes. So if you are saying that people actually don't mind helping and are happy to help and so on and so forth, what is it that these people are doing that is getting under our skin?

One common mistake that you see is that when people ask you for help, they kind of make the situation very uncomfortable by doing things like over-apologizing. Another common mistake is that people will make it transactional. So they'll say, if you help me with this, I'll do this for you in return, or you'll get this reward for helping me. And that might seem like a good idea because you think, oh, I'm offering this person a reward. Why wouldn't that make it better for them to help me? But what you've actually done is sort of taken out their ability to feel feel good about it personally. Finally, I think, and this is kind of common sense, but it's remarkable how much people screw this up. Sometimes it feels like someone's coming to you and asking for help, not because they really need help, but because basically they don't wanna do the thing that they're asking you to do. They don't wanna work that hard. So it's very important when you ask for help to make it clear that you've taken steps to try to do this yourself, and you're just kind of getting caught up on something, there's something you, you don't understand, or you, you know, you've given it your best shot, or, or you're incredibly busy and you're just not able to get to this thing even though it's really important. But it's, you know, it's not because you don't want to try. It's not because you're being lazy. It's not because you're trying to push something off onto someone else. It's a genuine need that you have. And I think that that's really important because, again, often our need is genuine, but we don't actually explain that. And so people can be left with the impression that you're just asking them to do something because you don't want to do it.

So I realize that I do the thing you mentioned where you apologize too much and that makes it weird. I am the person who does that. But I have a friend who takes a different approach, which is she talks about how much you will love helping her. It'll be so fun. It'll be a wild adventure. Who knows what could happen? And I find that to be just as odd. But am I like a big stick in the mud?

Like, OK. And I actually know someone who does exactly the same thing, say, oh, you're gonna love doing this for me, right? And it's like, first of all, don't tell me what I'm gonna love and what I'm gonna not. Immediately, people experience being told how they're going to feel about something as controlling. So you really just want to sort of say, just sort of say, this is the help I need. It would be, this is why it would be so helpful to me, and really focus on that and not try to sell it as something that's somehow good for them or, or, or try to make them feel manipulated in any way. That's just, that's just dangerous. They might do it, they might actually give you the help, but again, it won't be rewarding and you're, you're not doing anything for your long-term relationship with this person.

Mm-hmm. Yes. I'm lucky that my friend in this case, I've come to find it sort of endearing, but you, you can't have that quality necessarily with everyone, especially the people you work with.

Exactly.

Yeah. So if we are gonna get over ourselves and ask for help in the right way, what is step one? How do we get over? The reluctance we feel to ask for help in the first place?

What we tend to do when we ask someone for help is not do a good job of seeing it from their perspective. We actually— we think we're doing that, but what we actually do is focus too much on what we think the costs will be to that person to help us, and too much about our own sort of embarrassment about having to ask for help. But when you actually understand that there are tremendous benefits for people to be helpful, that it's actually one of the richest sources of well-being for human beings. It's just how we're wired that we feel good about ourselves and our lives feel better and happier when we are helpful to others. When I ask someone for help and I genuinely need it, I've done my best and I genuinely need this help, I'm actually offering them an opportunity to feel really good about themselves. I think that can really help a lot in getting past both sort of the sense that the focus too much on the negative. It's important to actually focus on the positive when it comes to helping people are helpful, and generally they like to do it.

One of the challenges I think you face in a work context is that you sometimes do have to ask people to do things and also sometimes ask them to do it in a certain way. And I'm a little nervous about that because you've been saying, well, if you are too controlling in the way you ask for help, you'll ruin it and drain out people's inherent helpfulness. But on the other hand, sometimes at work, I feel like you can't just be like, like, let a thousand flowers bloom, you know, do this in your own weird way, you be you. It's like, how do you kind of ask for something in a controlled way without it being a controlling way?

I guess you can ask for very specific kinds of help. In fact, actually, that's a really good thing. One of the obstacles that helpers have sometimes to providing help is that they actually don't— they're not sure of how to help you. They're not sure they can help you. They're not sure they're gonna be successful in helping you, and then they're gonna feel bad, right? So I don't, there's, it isn't come, it doesn't, it isn't experienced as controlling in the same sense to say, this is the help I need and I've sort of mapped out everything. So I'm gonna lay it out for you exactly how I need you to help with this. And this is what I need. This is exactly what I need for you to do. That's actually a very good thing. To do because it's gonna give the helper a lot more certainty about how they can be successful. Again, I think that's a mistake that people who need help often make is that we don't wanna give that specific guidance, right? We feel like that would be controlling in a bad way and it's actually not controlling in a bad way. It's actually setting your helper up for success. And when they help you and it was successful, let them know that they were effective. That's what's going to, again, make it really rewarding for them and, again, make them more likely to continue to help you in the future.

Yeah, so what are some ways that we could help people see their help land?

Well, I think first and foremost, I think the easiest way is to actually just come back again and let them know that it did. Give them a sense of what happened afterwards. Sometimes people just don't know. I've had colleagues ask me to help with something for let's say, like a pitch they were going to make to a client and I give them some help and then I just have no idea how the pitch went later because I'm not a part of it. So, so just that little follow-up, like, hey, just wanted you to know it went really well and that, you know, couple of slides that you built for me was really useful. That kind of thing is just— it's the little amount of time it takes to actually send that follow-up email or grab that person in the hallway and say, hey, by the way, this is what happened. It's just tremendously impactful.

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One of the techniques people use to ask for help that you talk about in the book that's kind of a double-edged sword is the pre-commitment. So, yes. Hey, can I ask you for a favor? Tell me a little bit about why that's complicated.

There was a great study that was done by a psychologist named Vanessa Bonds and some of her colleagues. What they did was they had undergraduates had to go up to people in a busy train station who were commuters and ask them to fill out a questionnaire. And they found that in the first version of it, they had people go up to a stranger and say, would you mind taking a moment and filling out this questionnaire? And I think they get about a little over 50% of people willing to say yes, which is, in and of itself, kind of extraordinary, right? It's really irritating to stop and fill out a questionnaire when you're trying to get home from work. And yet, over 50% of people do it. But it's like about 55% or so said yes. And then they tried it a different way. Again, go up to these strangers who are commuting home. And they started by saying, excuse me, would you do me a favor? And then they waited. And that's really important. You have to wait until the person says, Yeah, or sure, OK. And then generally they do. And then you say, would you fill out this questionnaire? Now the success rates are around 87%, 88%. So big jump in people being willing to help. And it comes from what psychologists call this concept of pre-commitment. So when you ask me, will you do me a favor? And I say yes. And now you ask me for the favor, I've sort of already told you that I would do it. So now there's a— I talked before about the discomfort of saying no. Well, now the discomfort is much bigger. But the downside is that it does make people feel controlled. So powerful technique, would not recommend using it on friends and colleagues on a regular basis because it is a manipulation ultimately.

Are there better ways to ask that would have some of the benefits but without the costs of that approach? Because you talked about the importance allowing people to see that their help will land. But that's something that happens after they've helped you.

Sure.

What can you do when you're asking them to kind of sweeten the deal?

There's a couple of things that you can do that actually strengthen how good it feels to help. One is, there's really kind of two main sources of that increased sense of well-being that people are getting when they help you. One comes from what you might call just sort of a more positive identity. That if I help you, I'm a good person. So it can be helpful when you're asking for help, you know, and talking about it and say, to acknowledge that aspect of it, to sort of say, you know, wow, it would be just incredibly helpful. It would be very generous of you to help me in this way. Again, you're sort of subtly, you know, reminding that person of how good they're going to feel about themselves in helping you. So you can kind of use that sort of language. The other thing is that really what really motivates people to help is a sense of us, is a sense that we're on the same team. Human beings are wired to be helpful to people that they see as part of their own group, part of their own sort of tribe, so to speak. So again, it can be helpful to sort of subtly remind people about the sort of common identities you share, the things you have in common. So those are really kind of the two reasons why we feel really good about helping people. We either feel good because we feel like we feel good about ourselves, or we feel like we're helping somebody who's a part of our group. And anything I do that helps the group ultimately helps me.

What if you're leading a team? Is there a way to create a culture of helpfulness on your whole team so that people will just become more helpful without waiting to be asked?

Yes. As a leader, you can be very much a helpfulness role model. By being public in going out of your way to be helpful to people and people on the team, you can expect not only the norms to change, but you can also expect reciprocity. Human beings are massively reciprocal by nature. And if you're helpful to someone, they're much more likely to be helpful to you back. It's also true that if one person helps another, they're actually more likely to help them again in the future. So these things tend to snowball. You get one very helpful, prosocial, cooperative person on a team, and they can have a ripple effect. So really, it can start with anyone.

So let's switch gears slightly now and talk about— take the perspective of the person who is being asked for help and saying no. We've talked about how hard it is to say no.

Oh, it is.

But say that you really have to. Someone has asked you in the perfect way. You really would like to help, but you really just are not in a position where you can. What's the best way to say no without really putting them off?

So one of the simplest things you can do when you have to say no is just take a moment to explain why. To explain that you actually really would like to do it. But here are the reasons. Here are the things that are going on right now for me that make it impossible for me to help you in this way. I think another thing that you can do that's very effective is to try to offer an alternative. So offering some alternative form of help that you can give can go a long way to, again, keeping that relationship a positive one. Because absolutely, we do all have to sometimes say no.

One of the things I think we do often as leaders and human beings is we ask the most agreeable people for help over and over again.

Oh, sure.

Because they find it hard to say no, and they will say yes. And even if we sometimes feel bad that we're going back to the same people over and over again, we think, gosh, well, we know Barbara will say yes, so I'm just going to ask her to do this thing. How can we get better about being fair and not only asking the most agreeable people to help us?

It's such a good question, and it's such an And it's such an important one because we're going with the person that feels safe and feels like a sure thing and is going to not create any sort of rejection experience for us. But Adam Grant's research on givers really clearly shows that givers are the most successful people in an organization and the least successful people in an organization. And the difference between the two, whether you are a giver who succeeds or a giver who burns out, is whether or not you actually can manage the amount of giving that you're being asked to do, right? And that, in a way, you actually do have to learn to sometimes say no, even as a giver, because you can't allow yourself to burn out. Some of those really nice people get really badly burned out. So it is important to sort of preserve their energy and not rely on them too much. And by the way, some of those other people maybe have very valuable help to give you, and they are not as overburdened. So how do you do it? I think it actually, like so many things in life, becomes a matter of keeping track because our memories are kind of faulty. Keeping track of that is actually a great way to say, wow, end up recognizing I have really been leaning too hard on one person, or I've been giving all the great stuff to one person, either way. So I'd say keep track of it. Is a really helpful thing. And just, again, to sort of take that moment to pause before you sort of go to that person that you would always go to and say, hey, who haven't I gone to? And let me try again, especially if it's someone who said no. You really don't want to neglect those people because those people are often a very rich source of help.

Well, Heidi, I have found this conversation enormously helpful.

So thank you. Oh, that's ideal.

Your help has landed. You have helped me. And many other people. So thank you.

Fantastic. Thanks so much, Sarah.

That's Heidi Grant. She's a social psychologist and the associate director of Columbia Business School's Motivation Science Center. Her most recent book is Reinforcements: How to Get People to Help You. Our show is produced by Amanda Kersey and Curt Nickisch. Adam Buchholz is our audio product manager, and we get technical and production help from Rob Eckhardt. We got extra production help this week from Ramzi Kabbaz. Thanks for listening to the HBR IdeaCast. I'm Sarah Greene Carmichael.